Chapter 60 His
HIS
I whirled around.
Vaeris stood a dozen paces away, his dark hair plastered to his face with blood. His armor was scorched and a gash ran from his temple to his jaw, but he was smiling.
My stomach plummeted.
The dragon had already sent everyone to a completely different realm because I’d been so desperate to get them out that I’d forgotten one small detail—me.
Vaeris gestured to the sky. “Magnificent, aren’t they?”
I took a step back, then another. My heel slipped on loose stone and a jolt stabbed my heart.
“Easy.” He raised his hands, stepping over a wooden beam. “I’m not here to hurt you.”
Cold flooded my limbs. Run.
I crept toward a street that led directly to the human quarter. Runecloaks moved through the rubble. Some gawked up at the dragons, their faces slack, while others knelt beside the fallen.
I still had friends in this city, people who hated the fae. If I could reach them, maybe I could hide until Kairos returned for me.
Vaeris smiled wryly, sauntering closer. “You’re thinking about the weaver’s shop with the false cellar, aren’t you? Or the tanner’s daughter you’re friends with?”
I gritted my teeth.
He sighed. “You can stop looking at me like I’m about to cut your throat. I’m not here for that.”
I edged backward, boots scraping over broken stone. The mouth of an alley gaped behind me. Three doors down, Odessa’s flower shop—the garden bled into other streets and courtyards. He’d never find me.
“You enslaved me. You used my sister to corner me and my body to get what you wanted. You pushed me into breaking a palace and nearly killed me doing it. Every time I cross your path, I end up bleeding.”
“Yes.”
That landed like a slap.
“Yes?” I glared at him, bristling. “That’s all you have to say?”
He tilted his head, studying me. “Would you prefer an apology? I could give you one.”
I backed deeper into the alley. Ten paces to Odessa’s. The shadows swallowed me, but Vaeris kept coming, unhurried.
Armor clanked on the cobblestones.
I glanced over my shoulder. Runecloaks poured into the far end. Six of them. Fanning out, filling the narrow space.
No.
I spun back. Vaeris had stopped walking. He didn’t need to chase me anymore.
I stumbled backward until my shoulders hit wood—a door, the wine shop. My fingers found the handle and twisted. Locked.
“I would do it all again.”
My hand slipped into the fold of my dress, groping for a dagger. Small, barely more than a letter opener, but sharp. My fingers closed around the hilt.
“I have no regrets either,” I said.
Vaeris approached me. “No?”
I shook my head. “Even now, standing here with you.”
His mouth curved as he leaned against the door, and I searched for a gap in his armor. There, near his hip.
“Leaving me in that cell to rot was the best thing you ever did for me. If you hadn’t, I never would have met him.”
His smile faltered.
My grip tightened on the dagger. “You gave me to a male who’d burn down the world to keep me safe. Someone who loves me without conditions or deals.”
He sighed heavily. “Aelie.”
“Someone you will never be.”
I drove the blade right above his hip.
His breath punched out of him and his eyes widened. Heat gushed over my fingers. I left the blade inside him and ran.
Vaeris snarled.
I threw myself at the nearest door, shoulder-first, and the rotted wood splintered inward.
A shop. Bolts of fabric stacked against the walls. I scrambled over a cutting table, knocking shears and thread to the floor, searching for a door, a window, anything—
“That was very foolish of you.”
Vaeris stood silhouetted in the frame, a hand pressed to his side. Blood seeped between his fingers, but he was already healing.
“I came to you in good faith,” he said in a clipped voice. “I wanted to have a civilized conversation, and you stabbed me.”
I grabbed a pair of shears off the floor and held them up.
“Stabbed me.” He stepped inside, his lip curling. “Like some common cutpurse.”
Behind him, Runecloaks filled the doorway.
Vaeris balled his fists. “Living amongst the savages has changed you.”
“Stay back!”
He lunged at me.
I swung at him. His hand shot out and slammed me against the wall. The shears clattered from my grip and his fingers wrapped my neck.
“I’m disappointed, sweetling.”
“Fuck you.”
“Eloquent.” He sighed, then glanced at his Runecloaks. “Take her to my chambers.”
Ice spread through my body.
“I’ll be there later.” He released my throat and gripped my arm, hauling me off the wall. “And when you’ve calmed down, we’ll try this again.”
“I’ll never stop fighting you.”
He handed me to the Runecloaks, who yanked me out of the shop, the blood already drying on Vaeris’s armor.
Like it had never mattered at all.
I stood in the center of Vaeris’s room, trying not to breathe too deeply. It smelled too much like him—jasmine, old parchment, and spice—clinging to the velvet drapes, the thick carpets, the silk sheets on a massive bed.
Books everywhere, crammed onto shelves, stacked on the floor, piled on a worktable cluttered with ink bottles and strange instruments. Runes glowed along the doorframe, the bedposts. Journals lay open, filled with sketches and notes.
This was worse than a cell.
Cold stone and iron bars—at least there was distance. This was too intimate. Every object had been touched by him, chosen by him, arranged exactly how he wanted, and now I was part of the collection.
I crossed to the window and looked down.
No rooftops to climb across, just a sheer drop. Even if I survived, I’d freeze before I reached the city.
I pressed my forehead to the glass, swallowing a scream as I took in the devastation of Skalgard.
Outside, the sun had begun to set, painting the ruined city in gold. But the rubble was…shifting. Stone grinding softly against stone. Cracks sealing themselves with thin veins of pale light. A collapsed wall dragged itself upright, stones knitting together.
“What’s happening?”
“Dragon magic,” Vaeris said, directly behind me. “I made an arrangement with one of them.”
I spun around, heart slamming against my ribs.
He stood less than three paces away. The shadows peeled from his shoulders like smoke. He’d changed—the bloodied armor gone, replaced by a midnight-blue tunic, and his hair was damp.
“How long have you been standing there?”
“Long enough. It’s four stories,” he continued mildly. “Onto frozen ground. You’ll shatter both legs, if you survived at all, and then my guards would carry you back up here.”
He didn’t move, watching me with those frostbitten eyes.
“There’s nowhere to run.”
I swallowed hard. “What do you plan to do with me?”
Vaeris opened his mouth. Closed it. Then he let out a breath and walked to a leather-backed chair. He sank into it, bracing his elbows on his knees.
“I have no idea,” he laughed. “I never thought I’d get this far.”
A sick feeling settled in my stomach. This room was…weird. The air pressed against my skin, and I shivered despite the fire in the hearth. I kept glancing at the door, praying someone would enter.
The chair creaked.
I tensed.
Vaeris rose slowly, unfolding from his seat like a shadow given form. He watched me, his head tilting, then stepped forward.
“You’re different,” he murmured.
He stopped a few feet away, his brow furrowing. His nostrils flared once. Twice. Something shifted in his expression—confusion bleeding into focus.
“What is that?”
He inched closer. I pressed harder against the window.
“That scent. Underneath yours. It’s…”
He sniffed again, deeper this time, frowning. A muscle jumped in his cheek.
“No,” he breathed.
He crossed the distance in two strides, grabbing my wrist and yanking it toward his face. He inhaled, and I tried to wrench free, but he was too strong.
When he looked up, his eyes were blazing.
He paused, studying my face. “Oh.”
My stomach dropped. “What?”
A cruel smile spread across his face. “He didn’t tell you.”
“Tell me what?”
He laughed. “Of course not. You are the one thing in this world he cannot afford to lose.”
My throat closed. “I don’t understand.”
“You’re his mate.”
The word landed like a blade.
My vision tunneled. “His what?”
“Mating bonds are incredibly rare. They are sacred to fae.” He straightened, staring at me. “And you didn’t know. Gods, it’s right there.”
“What are you babbling about?”
Vaeris seized a handheld mirror from a side table, thrusting it into my hands. “Look.”
Bewildered, I glanced in the mirror. My reflection caught light—disheveled hair, flushed cheeks, and—
Oh no.
I stared into the mirror, tracing a rune on my chest. Thin whorls of pale gold threaded with crimson pulsed, syncing with my heartbeat. I barely touched one of the lines, and heat snapped into my finger.
“That’s your mating bond.”
The mirror slipped from my fingers, falling onto the carpet.
“No,” I whispered. “Mating bonds are only between fae.”
“You must have some fae ancestry.”
My knees buckled. I caught myself on the arm of a chair, then sank into it, my legs refusing to hold me.
Oh gods.
All those times I’d heard Kairos inside my mind. His voice sliding into my thoughts like he belonged there. Feeling his panic spike through me when I was in danger. His grief, his rage, his desperate love—bleeding into me.
I’d thought it was just…us. I’d been too busy running, fighting, trying to save Rheya to stop and question it.
I reached for him. Kairos.
Silence.
I could feel him, but he wasn’t awake. My hands were trembling. I pressed them flat against my thighs, steadying myself.
“I have Kairos’s mate.” Vaeris towered over me, his eyes gleaming. “Do you understand what that means? A mating bond isn’t just romance. It’s a leash. Whatever pain I inflict, he suffers.”
I gripped the armrest.
“I could break him without ever touching him,” he whispered. “I could destroy the King of Sanguir from leagues away, using nothing but you.”
I couldn’t breathe. The room felt smaller, the air too thick, like the walls were leaning in to listen.
Vaeris shook his head. “I need to think.”
My pulse thundered in my ears.
He crossed to the door and opened it, pausing with his hand on the frame. Then he left, closing it with a soft click.